In this post we give a brief overview of how Earth Observation (EO) optical payloads are used in small satellites and share listings of multiple produ

CubeSat cameras and optical payloads for small satellites on the global marketplace

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2021-05-25 18:30:11

In this post we give a brief overview of how Earth Observation (EO) optical payloads are used in small satellites and share listings of multiple products available on the global marketplace – if you would like to skip the introductory material and instead get straight to the product listings, please click here.

Space engineers have been looking to lower costs by using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) innovations for the last few decades.

Alongside this commercial drive, experiments into the use of COTS components and sub-systems have been carried out at universities such as the University of Surrey and TU Berlin for several years.

In fact, the foundation of experimental satellites built by universities, such as the UoSAT and TUBSAT series of satellites, has provided the basis for realising cost-effective spacecraft that are packed with decent Earth Observation (EO) capabilities.

It is worthwhile to note interesting observations made by Professor Sir Martin Sweeting (Figure 1) of improvements in performance criteria such as Ground Sampling Distance (GSD), data rate, data storage etc., having a very close association with Moore’s law.